New Paradigms in the Treatment of Acute Complicated and Uncomplicated Type B Aortic Dissection

The treatment of acute type B aortic dissection is a rapidly evolving field, due in a large part to the advent of thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR). This review will summarize the current literature on the management of both complicated and uncomplicated type B dissections, with special attention paid to emerging evidence supporting earlier aggressive treatment

Validity of Landauer's principle in the quantum regime

We demonstrate the validity of Landauer's erasure principle in the strong coupling quantum regime by treating the system-reservoir interaction in a consistent way. We show that the initial coupling to the reservoir modifies both energy and entropy of the system and provide explicit expressions for the latter in the case of a damped quantum harmonic oscillator. These contributions are related to the Hamiltonian of mean force and dominate in the strong damping limit. They need therefore to be fully taken into account in any low-temperature thermodynamic analysis of quantum systems.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Seeing double with K2: Testing re-inflation with two remarkably similar planets around red giant branch stars

Despite more than 20 years since the discovery of the first gas giant planet with an anomalously large radius, the mechanism for planet inflation remains unknown. Here, we report the discovery of EPIC228754001.01, an inflated gas giant planet found with the NASA K2 Mission, and a revised mass for another inflated planet, K2-97b. These planets reside on ~9 day orbits around host stars which recently evolved into red giants. We constrain the irradiation history of these planets using models constrained by asteroseismology and Keck/HIRES spectroscopy and radial velocity measurements. We measure planet radii of 1.31 +\- 0.11 Rjup and and 1.30 +\- 0.07 Rjup, respectively. These radii are typical for planets receiving the current irradiation, but not the former, zero age main sequence irradiation of these planets. This suggests that the current sizes of these planets are directly correlated to their current irradiation. Our precise constraints of the masses and radii of the stars and planets in these systems allow us to constrain the planetary heating efficiency of both systems as 0.03% +0.03%/-0.02%. These results are consistent with a planet re-inflation scenario, but suggest the efficiency of planet re-inflation may be lower than previously theorized. Finally, we discuss the agreement within 10% of stellar masses and radii, and planet masses, radii, and orbital periods of both systems and speculate that this may be due to selection bias in searching for planets around evolved stars.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, accepted to AJ. Figures 11, 12, and 13 are the key figures of the pape

Statin use and risk of community acquired pneumonia in older people: population based case-control study

Objective To test the hypothesis that hydroxymethyl glutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins) may decrease the risk of community acquired pneumonia

Anharmonic vs. relaxational sound damping in glasses: I. Brillouin scattering from densified silica

This series discusses the origin of sound damping and dispersion in glasses. In particular, we address the relative importance of anharmonicity versus thermally activated relaxation. In this first article, Brillouin-scattering measurements of permanently densified silica glass are presented. It is found that in this case the results are compatible with a model in which damping and dispersion are only produced by the anharmonic coupling of the sound waves with thermally excited modes. The thermal relaxation time and the unrelaxed velocity are estimated.Comment: 9 pages with 7 figures, added reference

Formation of Super-Earths

Super-Earths are the most abundant planets known to date and are characterized by having sizes between that of Earth and Neptune, typical orbital periods of less than 100 days and gaseous envelopes that are often massive enough to significantly contribute to the planet's overall radius. Furthermore, super-Earths regularly appear in tightly-packed multiple-planet systems, but resonant configurations in such systems are rare. This chapters summarizes current super-Earth formation theories. It starts from the formation of rocky cores and subsequent accretion of gaseous envelopes. We follow the thermal evolution of newly formed super-Earths and discuss their atmospheric mass loss due to disk dispersal, photoevaporation, core-cooling and collisions. We conclude with a comparison of observations and theoretical predictions, highlighting that even super-Earths that appear as barren rocky cores today likely formed with primordial hydrogen and helium envelopes and discuss some paths forward for the future.Comment: Invited review accepted for publication in the 'Handbook of Exoplanets,' Planet Formation section, Springer Reference Works, Juan Antonio Belmonte and Hans Deeg, Ed

Elevated Integrin α6β4 Expression is Associated with Venous Invasion and Decreased Overall Survival in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Lung cancer carries a poor prognosis and is the most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The integrin α6β4, a laminin receptor, promotes carcinoma progression in part by cooperating with various growth factor receptors to facilitate invasion and metastasis. In carcinoma cells with mutant TP53, the integrin α6β4 promotes cell survival. TP53 mutations and integrin α6β4 overexpression co-occur in many aggressive malignancies. Because of the high frequency of TP53 mutations in lung squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), we sought to investigate the association of integrin β4 expression with clinicopathologic features and survival in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We constructed a lung cancer tissue microarray and stained sections for integrin β4 subunit expression using immunohistochemistry. We found that integrin β4 expression is elevated in SCC compared with adenocarcinoma (P \u3c .0001), which was confirmed in external gene expression data sets (P \u3c .0001). We also determined that integrin β4 overexpression associates with the presence of venous invasion (P = .0048) and with reduced overall patient survival (hazard ratio, 1.46; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-2.09; P = .0422). Elevated integrin β4 expression was also shown to associate with reduced overall survival in lung cancer gene expression data sets (hazard ratio, 1.49; 95% confidence interval, 1.31-1.69; P \u3c .0001). Using cBioPortal, we generated a network map demonstrating the 50 most highly altered genes neighboring ITGB4 in SCC, which included laminins, collagens, CD151, genes in the EGFR and PI3K pathways, and other known signaling partners. In conclusion, we demonstrate that integrin β4 is overexpressed in NSCLC where it is an adverse prognostic marker

Ageless Aluminum-Cerium-Based Alloys in High-Volume Die Casting for Improved Energy Efficiency

Strong chemical reactions between Al and Ce lead to the formation of intermetallics with exceptional thermal stability. The rapid formation of intermetallics directly from the liquid phase during solidification of Al-Ce alloys leads to an ultrafine microconstituent structure that effectively strengthens as-cast alloys without further microstructural optimization via thermal processing. Die casting is a high-volume manufacturing technology that accounts for greater than 40% of all cast Al products, whereas Ce is highly overproduced as a waste product of other rare earth element (REE) mining. Reducing heat treatments would stimulate significant improvements in manufacturing energy efficiency, exceeding (megatonnes/year) per large-scale heat-treatment line. In this study, multiple compositions were evaluated with wedge mold castings to test the sensitivity of alloys to the variable solidification rate inherent in high-pressure die casting. Once a suitable composition was determined, it was successfully demonstrated at 800 lbs/h in a 600-ton die caster, after which the as-die cast parts performed similarly to ubiquitous A380 in the same geometry without requiring heat treatment. This work demonstrates the compatibility of Al REE alloys with high-volume die-casting applications with minimal heat treatments